AUTOTOMY

For the first time in a year, I was able to meet a friend from the US who was visiting here. I’ve placed so much distance between myself and those I knew, that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to connect on a regular basis. The time has passed quickly this year, but obviously distance has changed me. Though surrounded by happy, smiling people, I am still isolated, such that I’ve become more a hermit or a monk, culturally, that is.

The noise never stops. Even in the middle of the night, motor cycles will blare by the apartment, and since it’s just a concrete block, it traps sound, amplifies it. Sometimes the dogs bark all night, fighting over street territory, until one yelps and runs away. Sometimes there are squealing pigs out on the empty back lot, awaiting slaughter and roasting for someone’s party. Before sunrise, the roosters add their cacophony to the mix. There are children and a baby next door. When the baby cries, his nanny takes him into the hall outside our door. Her singing echoes in the hall. So, I keep a pair of earplugs ready at all times. It narrows the noise down to the sound of my beating heart. And though I can still feel the pressure thumps of my fingertips on the keyboard, I feel safer inside these walls of silence.

We have issues with ants. Since we’re in the tropics you might think mosquitoes are the problem, but we get a lot more ants in the apartment than mosquitoes. It’s amazing how fast these tiny beasts find leftover morsels. One day I was at the computer writing after lunch. About an hour later when I came out of the trance, I noticed a line of ants behind me, coming down the wall and across the floor to the garbage. They’d found the empty tuna can in the garbage with a few remaining pieces of fish that I hadn’t dug out of the groove. This is why we only have very small garbage cans and the trash is put out every day. It’s too bad the geckos don’t seem to have an appetite for them.

We often go without running water, day to day, during the week. The last couple of months, about two days each week there is no running water. So, when we have water, we fill up a bunch of 6 liter containers to keep around for the dry days.